Lance Inc., a non-union North Carolina firm, has decided to turn its back on Stella D'oro workers, families and community and close the Bronx plant. As New York Teacher went to press, workers were being sent out of the plant and told it was their last day of work.

Activists from NYSUT and its affiliates, the Professional Staff Congress and the United Federation of Teachers, have been front and center defending the 136 Stella D'oro factory workers who fought an 11-month strike to return to their jobs.

The workers are members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers union.

Just days after the National Labor Relations Board ordered the company to return the workers to the plant, their employer announced the brand was being sold and production would move to Ohio.

The current owners, Brynwood Partners, a private equity firm, sold the Stella D'oro operation — which had been producing baked goods in the Bronx for 78 years — to Lance, a snack-food manufacturer based in Charlotte, N.C.

The unionized bakery plant has been a Bronx fixture and the source of stable family-supporting jobs in the Kingsbridge neighborhood. Unions believe profitable companies like Stella D'oro and Lance have an obligation to treat fairly the communities that made them successful and profitable.

The fight to keep production in the Bronx and to recognize the contract rights of the plant workers has attracted national attention, in many ways due to NYSUT's strong voice advocating for these workers and the need to keep good jobs in our state.

NYSUT's Board of Directors recently passed a resolution of support for the workers.

The statewide union's embrace of this issue has been matched by the generosity and solidarity of individual union members.

PSC members Lenny Dick, a professor at Bronx Community College, and Tony O'Brien, recently retired from Queens College, marched on the picket lines with the workers several days a week during the strike, through rain, snow and sun. Lizette Colon, who chairs the PSC chapter at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, hosted a Christmas party for children of the striking workers. Nikke McDaniel, chair of the Bronx CC chapter, kept the strike a topic of discussion on the working-class campus. The PSC proudly estimates 300 of its members have been involved in some level of support activities.

Sheila Goldberg, a NYSUT political action coordinator and retired teacher from Long Island, raised more than $2,000 to support the workers during the strike.

The long-time activist, who was recently named the AFT's Retiree of the Year (See related story), reminded educators about the 1978 Levittown strike and how many locals collected $5 a week per member to help those teachers.

"We have to stand up and speak out against this kind of union-busting," Goldberg said.